Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

Breaking Rules in Rome

Last week I was honored with a trip to Rome for the Redgate President’s Club. I was awarded this, along with our top people in Sales, for the work I did in 2025. It was a fun trip, but as we prepared to depart Cambridge, one of the rules our Chief Revenue Officer gave us was:

Don’t work this week

She told us that the company should be able to survive a week without us. On Wednesday, I got reminded of this when I replied to a few Slack messages.

Thursday I got reminded again.

By Friday she had given up.

It’s not that I don’t want to get away from work, or don’t, but there are things that come up and can be easily dealt with. In both cases, I had people ping me about things that are happening this week (18May) or in two weeks (1 Jun), and I need to ensure I’m prepped. I also had responses on a couple of SQL Server Central tickets, that I needed to provide a few details on.

These were small things, and I wasn’t checking email or most Slack messages, only a few channels where I knew there would be some relevant activity. I also scanned email looking for only ticket responses so I could provide info if needed.

Sometimes work takes priority over other things. I’ve had to handle a few things on sabbaticals. I’ve had to respond on vacation for certain things. In general I tell people to leave me alone, and they do for the most part.

I’m not upset, and it’s the price of being successful and involved. Finding this balance is important, and it’s easy to work too much, or too little. I feel I’ve got a pretty good balance when I go on vacation, minimizing interruptions, though certainly not eliminating them.

That being said, I did have a good time. Not sure why I’m not smiling, but the Colosseum was amazing.

May 18, 2026
Redgate and Rome

I’m at the UK Redgate office today, meeting with senior leaders in all areas of the business. I was honored to be awarded a spot in our President’s Club. This is where the top performing sales people get to meet with leaders in the company and then head off for a few days of relaxation and excitement.

I’m here today and tomorrow and then off to Rome. We’re heading to tour the city, see the Vatican, and visit some great restaurants. I’m excited for the trip and I’ll have a few photos and thoughts next week, but I’m off this week.

Hopefully it’s a quiet one for you.

May 11, 2026
A Redgate Data Modeler Gotcha with Relationships

This happened to me recently after being busy with non-data modeling tasks for a few weeks. I went to add a relationship and was confused about the behavior. Read on to see what happened and what I did.

This is part of a series on Redgate Data Modeler.

Adding a Relationship

I opened one of my models and saw something like this. Note that the Article and ArticleTag entities aren’t related.

I decided to add a relationship. This is a Many to Many, so I clicked on that icon in the toolbar.

I then clicked on the Article entity and saw this. It’s a self-referencing relationship.

What??? I assumed I’d click one entity, then the other. I tried grabbing various elements of the relationship to move them, but nothing worked. I could move them around within the relationship, but not to another entity.

I deleted and added this a few times before I decided to check the docs. On this page for relationships, I found my mistake. There is this quote: “If you’ve already selected the tool, simply drag from one entity to another.”

Aha.

If I click the toolbar relationship icon, and then drag from one to the other, it works.

I suspect this is an artifact of the web controls, but it was weird for me to not be able to alter the relationship targets. Even in the right properties pane, I can’t change this.

Summary

A simple thing, but not quite as intuitive as I’d like. However, one needs to learn to use tools, which means reading docs or using Claude/ChatGPT and

This is a reminder to drag relationships in your Redgate Data Modeler models and don’t get away from modeling for weeks, like I did.

Give Redgate Data Modeler a try and see if it helps you and your team get a handle on your database.

Video Walkthrough

Here’s a short video of my working with Redgate Data Modeler and changing cardinality.

May 4, 2026
SWAG Saves the Day

PASS Summit East is in one week.

I was on the road last week in the UK and then Houston for the Houston AI-lytics event. I had been a little under the weather all week, and when I arrived in Houston, I decided to stay in the hotel and rest. Plus the 6:00 arrival was midnight for my body.

I walked next door and got some takeout and then grabbed a beer from the hotel store to relax and get to sleep early. Unfortunately, the bottle needed an opened. Fortunately, I was prepared.

This little opener is a piece of swag I got from Redgate years ago and I’ve kept it in my bag for just such occasions. No walking back to the desk, no disappointment, just a handy item that let me relax and get to sleep by 8.

I don’t know what swag Redgate or others will have next week at the PASS Summit East 2026 in Chicago, but if you don’t go, you won’t know. Register for the event, book a flight, come join me.

Sure, you might get some just-in-time training from a precon that lets you learn about PostgreSQL from Grant and Pat or how to secure your estate from Andreas. Did you know Andreas did this job for Microsoft for years, architecting security features?

There are lots of sessions where you might get inspired by a demo or get a question answered about your environment. Those are great, but who knows what SWAG you’ll find. You might get a handy tool you didn’t expect that saves your day, or night.

Send yourself. Send a colleague.

Send someone today to learn a few things, connect with others, and collect some swag. Register for the PASS Summit East and join me in Chicago next week.

April 30, 2026